Nature, Science, and Religon

It has recently come to my attention that in the entire world there are only three catagories of things. Every single thing is either an example of Nature, Science, or Religion. Let me explain through example.

Nature is everything that just is. Humans are nature. So are dogs. So are trees and rivers and the plague. Nature. Nature exists whether or not people fuck with it. Humans try to interpret nature through both Science and Religion.

Science is everything that humans make. Humans are the only parts of Nature which can do Science. I know that some monkeys and birds and bacteria use sticks and shit to get their food and scratch their paramecium or whatever, but that isn't Science, that's just using a stick. Humans have made cars (science), plastic (science), and bombs (science). That's what humans do. We run over, laminate, and blow-up your puny sticks.

Religion is everything that humans think... that they don't understand. If humans can't make science out of some part of nature, they make it religion (think the Greeks with the sun- they couldn't build solar panels, so they decided it was a god in a chariot.) Religion gets tricky when Science has some answer for something that Religion has had the stranglehold on for awhile. Religion is real bad at letting go.

So there you go. Three simple catagories which comprise every single thing ever. This theory is still fresh, so if anyone has any questions about how to catagorize something, please ask.

(6/4 Edit) I was talking about the theory with my buddy and came up with a few more things to say: Nature exists in everything, but Humans manipulate nature, either literally through Science or figuratively through Nature. Art is tricky, but I believe that while the practise of art, the technical creation is Science, the product is Religion. Art is a way for people to understand and express things that are outside of our own capacities. Art is Religion.

MySpace is cool for all the wrong reasons.

I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with the online networking website called MySpace but it's pretty rediculous. There are Fox News stories once a week about how it is tainting the youth, but back in the 1600's people thought novels would taint the youth too, and now if you see your 15 year-old kid reading a novel you know for damn sure that he/she isn't going around smoking pot, unless the novel they are reading is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and then you should be proud of the fact that your kid is reading Hunter S. Thompson. Either way, you win. Anyway, MySpace allows people to make online profiles of themselves to share with their "friends" that they have on the site. I parenthesize "friends" because all a MySpace friend is is someone who mutually agrees to share this title with you. You can friend someone you've never met before that lives in Boston, and if they think you're hot or have a cool car or whatever the fuck the standard is, then you can be friends with them. This is the main reason you see a lot of profiles with pictures of dudes flexing their muscles or showing off their tattoos. They must think it increases the likelihood that some stripper will befriend them. Whether or not that stripper will have sex with them is a different story, but from the looks of how people socialize using the MySpace network, I'm pretty sure this fact is lost to a sizeable portion of the online community that uses the site. Most pages seem dedicated to picking up members of the opposite sex, including the profile of a girl I graduated high school with.
I am not "friends" with this girl, nor would I encourage anyone to be, but I was browsing through a list of people who have profiles that I graduated with, and I got curious. It turns out that her page is some sort of Narcissistic self-glorifying softporn website, with pictures of herself in lingere and other shit like that. Not sexy, but strange. I'm pretty sure this girl's profile could be some psychology student's senior thesis, simply because it so obviously reflects self-image issues that makes me not want to make fun of someone who spends only 30 minutes in front of the mirror. This girl is freakin' nuts, and now she has the free means to broadcast her insanity to the world.
Go sign up for account and check out all the crazy people you graduated with. It's fun, and a huge waste of time. But I've got nothing better to do.

Commence with the Hangings

I didn't want to put this up on here because I thought I'd be tooting my own horn too much, but Aaron Mandel's mom told me she thought it was a good idea. At first I thought how it was NOT a good idea that my friends' mothers were reading the mental excrement that makes its way onto this site, but they all had nothing but good things to say. I also can't think of any posts right now because I am going through a very typical, but still emotional, Hollywood-esque breakup and I have been listening to U2's "With or Without You" over and over on my iPod while standing in the rain so that it masks my tears.

This is the commencement speech I delivered to the graduating class of 2006 from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington on May 21st at approximately 12pm:

Ambitious people are annoying. They enjoy ruining things for the rest of us. Those of us that enjoy where we are and what we are doing. If I want to spend half the day with my shirt off bouncing a frisbee off of works of public art, the last thing I need is someone getting accepted to Harvard Law walking around waving that piece of paper in people's faces making me feel like I haven't taken full advantage of the fact that we have the only library in the nation that has a Red Bull sponsorship. I have a desire to stay here forever, and you, my ambitious classmates, are ruining this hope of mine. I see you going off to do great things, to cure diseases, to invent faster unicycles, to bring back clear Pepsi, and I cringe. I cringe at the sight of such potential in light of my inherent desire to maintain stagnant in my life of throwing beer bottles at mice as I play my Xbox. I like eating cold pizza. I like waking up at noon. I like wearing the same pair of jeans for two weeks, then turning them inside out and wearing them for two more. I like all of these things, I like this life, and to see you all moving past me is unsettling and troubling to my world view. If we had a yearbook signing, you would get no HAGS from me.
I have only one group to blame really, and it is the people seated behind me. The professors of this college have ingrained a desire for knowledge, growth, and wonder in all of you that I have had to fight for four long years to avoid becoming tainted with. With their sensitivity to your personal needs and a desire to help you achieve your loftiest goals, I have found my stagnation in life increasingly unrewarding. But what do you all really have to look forward to? Is the gift these professors gave you really a gift at all? Ignorance is bliss, and I see not an ignorant face in this crowd. Welcome to the real world, I say to you. These professors have given you the key to paying taxes, to mortgages, to credit reports, to child support, to bills, to resume building, to brown-nosing, and to work-related nervous ticks that make your eye twitch whenever the stock market scrolls below the headline news. The stresses of the real world are too heavy a burden when you have sitting right here in front of you a garden of Eden where you simply have to reach out and pluck you favorite brand of beer and a twenty-dollar bill off of the nearest tree branch.
Granted, there are probably several things related to Whitman you are very eager to leave behind. Having your inbox clogged with fifty emails discussing the merits of drinking carrot juice over Gatorade is probably one of them. Watching two-hundred naked classmates run drunkenly around Ankeny field is hopefully another. I can imagine you are all more than eager to give up on this sickeningly tight-knit community in which you can approach someone with a smile and actually have it returned. This doesn't happen in the real world. If you smile at strangers, someone assumes you are crazy. I once smiled at a police officer in Houston and ended up spending six-weeks in federal prison for counterfeiting money. The world is a scary place, so why go anywhere? Why leave this place of warmth and security? I am sure the college could use the money, I hear they are trying to put a giant neon sign on top of Memorial so that you can see it from outer space. Whitman currently doesn't have a graduate program, but if they had four-hundred undergrads who didn't want to leave, they'd be forced to teach us something. Or they would call campus security, but they couldn't catch all of us.
If by this point I have been unable to convince you to stay here at Whitman, I doubt anything will. You all have made up your minds. You have decided that the world out there, outside the Whitman Bubble, is better. You've got no use for old, reliable Whitman. You will all move on to become investment bankers or sanitation engineers. Professional bowlers and big game hunters. All the careers that guarantee the least fun for the most money. Because that's really what all this was about. Fun. Having fun for four years while the real world got put on hold. And now, selfishly, you want to take this away from me. You want to move on, you think we should see other people. If that is how you really feel, if you feel we have grown apart, then perhaps this separation is for the best. I will stay here, among the ducks and trees, the fountains and the fraternities, and I will save you all a spot. If the world runs you over like an out-of-control freight train, don't hesitate to visit your old friend Drew at Whitman College. Just make sure you bring some money to donate to the school while you're at it.

Degrees and shit....

well, this should be the post where it is like, "Fuck, college is over, how did this shit go by so fast, holy shit" and maybe it is, you should all know by now I never plan this shit out more than like 5 words in advance advance advance. Anyways, this last week has been really tight, kickin it hard with everyone, families, watching George Bridges be so awkward at graduation, watching Drew upstage everyone with his speech and drinking for about 7-8 nights in a row, which I know for most is nothing, but goddam. Also, while there are certainly powerful twinges of sadness with regards to leaving, I have so much optimism because I am never really happier than during the summer when it seems there are less worries, certainly less work, better weather and prettier people. I can now enter an endless summer, at least for a few years, where if played smart I can work a little, in hopefully fun jobs with kids or in the outdoors and then spend an equal or greater part of the time traveling to cool places with people whose company I enjoy and care about. I also have only a twinge of sadness because I know, mainly due (like what Drew spoke about at graduation) to the fact that almost none of us monstronauts and orbiting planetary human intergalactic earth people satellites have distince life plans. I know that my goodbyes would have been a lot sadder if I had spent the last four years living and befriending people who took Whitman as an opportunity to fast-track themselves to lawyer-hood, doctor-ness or something else immediate and post-collegiate time-demanding. Instead we have all immersed ourselves in copious amounts of sin, booze, weed, other substances, unsanitary conditions, poor odors, IM sports, parties, and other such glorious pleasures instead of studying. At this point I know that mainly due to lack of direction and deep interpersonal connections I will be seeing many of the fine men I have lived with in the very near future, so what is the big deal, we are entering a real summer like we have at the end of every year but after that, an endless summer, for as long as people will last with me, I will fucking kick it, so fear not, no one reads a book backwards we are moving forward, somewhat fearlessly and I for one am not afraid, we are all smart, capable and completely ignorant and naive, that is a great place to be, we are gonna fuck some shit up. INTERLUDE: somethign that really pisses me off when the weather gets nice is the people that work out inside in that cardio room in sherwood, I pass through there sometimes and they are like human hamsters fucking powering nothing but there own terrible inadequacies. If you are going to be inside take a cue from other monstronaut bloggernauts drew and jumago who when they are inside are gaming, watching movies, or mastering technology and not bloody fucking exercising, when it's nice out, go outside and be outside doing outside, active shit, DO NOT GO INSIDE TO WORK OUT. fuck, that is the end of the interlude. Anyways, there was something cosmically aligned as I cleaned out the last vestiges of my existence from my room (except for all the semen and bullet casings I've lodged into the wall) and first of all, even completely cleaned out my room still looks dirty somehow, so it wasn't me, it was the room! And finally, just as I glanced around to make sure I'd gotten every last thing on the highest of the many shelves in my rooms a last holdout of the college years winked at me, a blue keystone light can from potentially the prehistoric era lingered, I took it down, put it in the trash, and out I go. Anyways, the Monstrosity itself will no longer be inhabited by us, but the monstro blog will live on, we will be posting from our various locales over the summer, hopefully I'll be able to post from Camp Tawonga in Yosemite and from Israel and maybe from a pit stop along the John Muir Trail, Jumago and Drew will be in Walla Walla keeping up the local reports and Dan will be in San Jose getting huge and filling his brain with Latin and medieval disciplinary techniques and all other readers and enthusiasts should comment from every neck of the woods. Anyways, I'm sitting in Garrett's room sending this off before I drive south and we are listening to "take it easy" and there is a line in it that speaks to me, "lighten up while you still can" and it makes me think of somethign my grandpa said to me this weekend. He is nearly 89 and hobbles around and is pretty aware he has some brain loss but he has gotten to travel a lot and seen a ton of things in his life and he was telling me that you just can't do things the same way you want them when you get older so I implore everyone to remember that our lives are going to be long and let's not be too concerned with having kids and building fences on our lawns and getting married and getting careers, I still have some hell to raise.

Alternative Kids

Today I was sitting in a local coffee shop hiding from the water that was raining down from the clouds, sipping on a hazelnut steamer. This particular coffee shop in Walla Walla is a primary hangout of all the "alternative" kids that attend Walla Walla High School. All the kids who like to smoke cigarettes and wear AC/DC shirts. The kids who shop at Hot Topic for their clothes, despite that they reportedly "don't give a fuck" abou fashion. These kids get piercings because it pisses of their parents. Personally I wouldn't give a crap if my kids had piercings or not as long as they didn't act like dipshits in front of local coffee shops.
I'm pretty sure these alternative kids were getting boozed up in front of the Coffee Perk. A water bottle filled with orange juice was a clue, the aforementioned dipshittery was another. One girl with costume jewelry on was acting particularly stupid, kind of flailing around randomly, probably mimicing something she saw in a My Chemical Romance music video. I have never had the impulse to punch a 15 year-old girl in the face before, but today I felt that sinful urge well within me. I kept it at bay with the comforting thought of her being an Avril Levigne fan. At one point she entered the shop as the barista was picking up a telephone, and the girl asked if they were calling the police on her. I'm sure this girl would have liked nother more than for her deviant behavior to summon the authorities, but alas, she was just being a dumbass on a public sidewalk and that doesn't usually summon the cops unless you're also naked while you're doing it.
The alternative kids then had pizza delivered to the front of the shop, which was a horrible thing for me to experience because there is nothing more horrid than watching drunk teenagers with little to no dental work inhale a pepperoni pizza.

Kids these days.

Clean the Castle

I am convinced our landlord is not a real human any longer but in fact a phantasm considering his ability to pick up rent and leave notes while never being seen by anybody. He ghosted into the house the other day and left a nice word-processed sheet of paper listing off all the things we have to clean in the house in order to get our deposits back. Being the cynic that I am, I just figured he would screw us out of that $300, so I never really thought twice about what chores I could do in order to get my allowance. It turns out our incorporeal landlord wants us to do much more than just clean. He wants a DEEP clean. Like when the dental hygenist makes your gums bleed because she is digging out the pieces of candy cane left in your teeth and gums since Christmas, the whole time saying "when is the last time you flossed?" all condescendingly. That kind of uncomfortable, "you're too close to my face and your breath smells like scotch" dental-hygenist clean.

First of all, the Monstrosity currently resembles a medieval castle in terms of cleanliness. There are piles of sheets, towels, lint, socks, mattresses, and carboard boxes stacked to the ceiling in the laundry room. Two of the four laundry machines actually work, and those that work tend to spew spores into the air anytime they are engaged. The hallways are littered with cups, plastic bags, more socks, probably some weapons, definitely a dead body, and I'm pretty sure there are some good CD's sitting buried under a pile of trash waiting patiently for some amateur archaeologist to come dig it out. There is dirt everywhere, even places where dirt shouldn't technically be, like on ceilings and anywhere above the first floor. It is fun to try and puzzle out how a pile of dirt made it all the way up to the third floor. Someone would have had to carry dirt two stories with the sole purpose of placing dirt there. What's more baffling is that most likely that scenario did not happen. There is some other explaination for that dirt, and it keeps me awake at night. The kitchen has new species of animal life quickly evolving out of months-old cheese beer soup courtesy of Garrett Stiles. I doubt he knew he would be fathering a new civilization when he cooked up that meal of the gods.

Personally I think we would be doing the landlord a bigger favor if we just blew up the place. He'd probably get a lot of insurance money, and then he could clean up the lot and sell it for primo bucks. They'll probably build something stupid here, like another winery or a T.G.I Friday's, but at least there won't be the possibility of getting sued after someone falls off your stoop and breaks their arm in half.

Beer Mile from a safe distance

Like many college campuses, Whitman has its eccentric annual traditions. The Ye Olde Ren Faire, the Choral Competition, and of course the inevitable burning of the student union building. That was up until we build a new one that isn't called "Student Union" anymore. Just days ago my friends and I witnessed a favorite tradition of many students, the Beer Mile.

Beer Mile takes place on the last day of the school year's classes, the midnight before Reading Day (when you're encouraged to sleep off your hangover and maybe consider studying.) Hundreds of Beer Mile inclined students gather on the central field in various states of undress and intoxication, and when the clock strikes midnight, they run. They're kind of like antelope though, because if one skittish freshman drunkenly bolts, everyone follows, least the Beer Mile start without them.

According to popular understanding, Beer Mile is nothing unique to Whitman and there are in fact people who take the activity very seriously in the "real world". Not a hobby per se, but a sort of off-season sport for desperate alcoholic cross-country goons, Beer Mile technically involves the pounding of beers over the course of a mile run. Finish a lap, finish a beer, x4.

This year myself and several calm compatriots chose not to run, instead showing up to offer support to our less than cognizant companions. It feels a little weird to be standing around smoking cigarettes while nude hordes are parading in front of you, but I suppose Hugh Hefner's gotten used to it. My astronaut bag of wine helped. I believe that you can participate in the spirit of Beer Mile without necessarily running naked, but then again I'm a pussy.

There is one kind of Beer Mile spirit which I am confidently disapproving of, however, and that is the person with the camera. I am well aware that there is no law preventing you from photographing anything that is happening out in public, however to do so at Beer Mile makes you an ass. Let's face it, there is no reason you could give with a straight face for wanting a bunch of butt-ass naked pictures of people you see in class every day. And that reason you're giving with a crooked face is real unpleasant, Mister.

I saw a local man at Beer Mile, clearly older by a decade than any student. His hair was long and his glasses were pushed up on the bridge of his nose to best put the event into focus. I noticed him when he said aloud to no one in particular "Awn, camera ain't workin'!" I would have liked to maybe trip him or rob him of his feelings of security, but honest to God, that man was sad enough already.

Early Morning Cerebration

Boy--

Check the time stamp and you'll see how late I'm up right now. It's my second late-nighter in a row. What the hell? I'm a second semester senior just days away from graduation. Why am I not enjoying myself? I'm pretty much done with this paper, yet I'm blogging and finishing a crossword. I was struck again with Drew's estimation of my character: "Dan always has to be working on something."

I wasn't always industrious. I copied math homework during the break between classes during high school up until junior year. Then something clicked inside and I couldn't stand wasting money or educational opportunities anymore. I can't explain it. I'm not the type of person to hesitate with self-doubt, but hearing another person analyze your personality is a unique moment of do-or-die redefinitions of self-image.

That said:

Aaron, Matt, and I just had our "Farewell T-Sports Roast" where we sat and endured the criticism of our colleagues in comedy. At times, it was a bit too real. My regrettable life philosophy--a man is an island, and mine is inhabited by cannibalistic natives who throw poisoned spears at tourists--saved me from any real harm. The jokes were brief and mainly circled around my insular state and my desire to seem gritty and mean. It looked pretty real for Aaron. His roast seemed to go on forever, and about half way through he got ghost pale with a face I have seen before. It's his face which says, "Hold on momentarily, I've stepped out of the present situation to battle demons in a dimension of darkness where my nudity isn't a weapon of terror." Or maybe that was just a few too many beers welling up in his system.

...

If you watch a Friar's Club Roast, you'll usually see the exalted one with a few status symbols. Hefner had 15 bitches with him, as if to say, "Go ahead and make fun about my dick, but I've taken these women off the market--and if I wanted to, I could build a time machine with my millions and travel back to a time where I could have Viagra-free sex. And I wouldn't mind that they'd only be 5 years old back then." I seem to remember Ramses III had his familiar cane and sickle when they roasted him.

We senior T-Sporters, on the other hand, had very little in terms of status symbols to fend off the ad hominem attacks, hyperbole though they were. Our age and experience were certainly flaccid defenses. I suppose I must rely on the fact that when I had the worst things to say about seniors in roasts-past, I kept my mouth shut. That these friends had loads to say was therefore a symbol of the highest esteem.

And there you have the reinterpreation of reality. People like me; they really like me.

Fashion

The other day I was skimming through a new mens' magazine called DETAILS (it's all about the details, get it?!?) which basically means the whole magazine is a cheap attempt to sell accessories to men. For the longest time accessorizing for men meant putting on a fedora, hanging a cigarette from your lips, and punching out someone for a match. All of a sudden that isn't good enough anymore. This magazine attempts to tell you what belts you can and cannot wear with a suit and sneakers. That's right, a suit with sneakers is the new cool thing, it's the new slap bracelet, it's the new Reebok Pump, its the new Hardy Boys, it's the new Eurythmics. I know what you're going to say; something along the lines of "the Eurythmics were never cool." And what I say is, skill at sarcasm is something you're born with, just like a low IQ. Accessorizing for men and women has finally evened out, in my opinion. Men are buying into it because it is so hard nowadays to "stand out." To "be unique." Take a look at the accessory girls at Whitman. Most of the time you look like you're playing dress-up with mommy's old clothes, but if you make something work, maybe you'll get the fashion credit you're so desperate for. It's how you distinguish yourself. You're cool if you stick a playing card in your off-kilter baseball cap. You're cool if you wear sunglasses indoors. You're cool if your jewelry says someting about YOU. You're cool like the Eurythmics.

The term "metrosexual" isn't cool to use anymore since metrosexuals stopped referring to themselves as such. There needs to be a new catchphrase when referring to men who use "product" instead of gel and who layer the same type of shirt upon itself, i.e. pink and purple Polos with the collar standing straight up like a good Hitler youth. I don't think metrosexual was a particularly good phrase to begin with. Suggesting that sexuality has something to do with fashion sense is a bit odd, especially since there seems to be a large number of gay cowboys running all over the place in recent months. I also don't think anyone has sexual desire for a new belt, but I did see a guy hump his new car once, so I could be wrong.

I shall call them dandies. A dandy seems appropriate, since dandy refers to dress and behavior and not sexuality and living location. You don't have to live in the city to be a dandy, you just have to want to wear a leather wristband while you're playing country music. Toby Keith is a freakin' dandy. So is Rascal Flatts. Colin Farrell is also a dandy, but he beats reporters up to try and cover up this fact. He also smokes cigarettes, which I think he does to make himself seem less like a dandy, when in fact smoking makes you moreso. Dandies are everywhere, and I'm not saying dandies are bad. What I am saying is that someone should make a new, hip store that is called "Modern Dandy" and sell a tie clip for $400.